


the handful of shadow i have brought back to you

by QuickSilverFox3



Category: The Magnificent Seven (2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Vampire, M/M, Period-Typical Racism, Pre-Canon, Sexual Content
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-23
Updated: 2020-12-23
Packaged: 2021-03-11 00:49:33
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,527
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28266432
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/QuickSilverFox3/pseuds/QuickSilverFox3
Summary: Vasquez had been alive for a very long time. He had thought that very little would surprise him anymore.
Relationships: Joshua Faraday/Vasquez
Comments: 5
Kudos: 39





	the handful of shadow i have brought back to you

**Author's Note:**

  * For [FiliTheLionKing (IAmYourWatson)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/IAmYourWatson/gifts).



> A Secret Santa present for Sparkles!  
> Prompt: Vampire! AU & Varaday

Vasquez had been alive for a very long time. He had thought that very little would surprise him anymore. 

The clouds overhead were gathering like sheep, dark and heavy with rain, and it was that sight—the stars that spiralled across the sky, and gave him enough light to travel by when the moon hid her face, blotted out—that drove him into the small saloon. After all, he reasoned to himself, as he tossed a coin to the stableboy, why get drenched if he didn’t have to?

His horse nickered as he left the stable, hoof pawing at the ground, and Vasquez could taste the boy’s apprehension in the air, the lingering taste of something sour unfolding on his tongue. But the lure of more money—though his gaze tracking the movement of Vasquez’s hips as he moved away was drawn to more than just the small pouch on his belt—won over, as Vasquez knew it would. 

The warmth of the saloon seemed to reach out and greet him, the air filling with flickering light and the stale scent of too many bodies packed in close. Vasquez paused, an icy fear slipping through his veins, but he pushed through it, loosening his neckerchief as he pushed the doors open. He hoisted his small pack further up on his shoulder, boots thumping against the slightly sticky floor. A few heads turned towards him, faces pale and uniform, but his attention was drawn to one that didn’t.

He knew the man had noticed his arrival. It was something about the set of his shoulders, the curve of his neck, the flicker of a smile that Vasquez could only catch the corner of as he moved to the bar and the man turned to address one of his companions. A fight was brewing. Vasquez had escaped one storm, only to arrive at another. At least this storm came with alcohol. 

Vasquez pressed his tongue to the hidden razor edge of his fangs as he swung himself onto the seat, grinning at the man behind the bar, who only met him with a flat stare. He was a wanted man, and had the pleasure of spending many days and nights in constant motion, barely able to do more than prey on drunks for his fuel before setting off once again. They would forget his face, eventually. He just had to run until that happened. 

The man set down his glass and moved up to where Vasquez was sitting. His gait was uneven, one leg refusing to bend correctly, and some instinct deep in Vasquez’s chest thrilled at the sight of it. Weak prey, that couldn’t run away, or at least, not for long. 

“You got money?”

“Si.” Vasquez set his elbow on the bar, and propped his head up on his fist—nails carefully hidden as they still bore dried blood beneath them—and grinned at the other man, watching a vein pulse in his temple. 

“Staying?”

“If you have a room.” 

The bartender grinned, revealing yellowing teeth, the gaps where they were missing yawning like an open grave. “We’ve got room. Didn’t you hear there’s a murderer about?”

Almost as if he had summoned it, a crack of lightning snapped across the sky, sending the entire room into brilliant stark relief. Two of the women shrieked, before collapsing into giggles, cheeks pink and hair falling from its pins as their entire bodies quaked. A man, drunk enough that his scent was making Vasquez’s head spin slightly, tipped backwards off his chair, falling with a crash loud enough to rival the roll of thunder. 

Vasquez tilted his head to the side. “So, that is a yes on the room?”

The man sagged backwards, reminding him of a marionette with it’s strings suddenly loosened. “Dollar for the room per night. Dollar and a half if you’re wanting anything extra.”

Vasquez’s grin goes still, lips thinning at the edges. A bead of sweat rolled down the man’s temple, but he didn’t move, set on the course of his own destruction. They both knew he was overcharging Vasquez because he was Mexican. Vasquez could feel the press of his fangs against his lips, and considered what it would be like to bite the man. Bullets hurt, shattering bone in their wake, and it was a pain to twist himself enough to prize it from his skin, tacky with his own blood. He wouldn’t die, but that didn’t mean it wouldn’t hurt. 

“One dollar,” Vasquez slipped the coin from its hiding place beneath the cuff on his wrist, faster than the eye could track, and held it up. He tilted his wrist so it caught the light, reflected in the other man’s eyes like the moon. “I have my own food. But I will take a beer.”

The man huffed, but took his money regardless, passing him a small key attached to a metal tag. 

Vasquez turned and stared out over the bar, eyes drawn back to the same man from before.

Something about him seemed to call to Vasquez, a siren song that both thrilled and terrified him. 

“Now then, gentleman.” His voice rolled over the vowels, stretching them out deliberately. His words were quiet, intended only for the men at his table—four of them, taller and broader than the first, and growing angrier by the second, cheeks flushing—but Vasquez felt as if he would be able to pick out his voice in the midst of a crowd, or in the aftermath of an explosion when the air was hazy and thick enough to choke, ears ringing with the sheer noise. “I’m wanting a nice fair game.”

“Just shuddup, and deal, Faraday,” one of the men spat, venom lacing every word. One look at the man’s face, grin stretching from ear to ear, cigarette clamped between his teeth and almost burnt down to the stub and tongue curled deliberately in his mouth, and Vasquez knew that every bit of that hatred was well earned. 

Faraday laughed, uncaring, but dealt, hands almost seeming to dance above the patterned blue backs of the cards. Vasquez reached behind him to grab his drink, never once looking away from the card game. The beer was sour, the bitterness coating his tongue and he wrinkled his nose at the taste. Faraday glanced over, a coy look that would have put the most seasoned whore to shame, and grinned, biting back laughter at Vasquez’s expense. 

One of the others—built as if he had been hewn from a mountainside, nose twisted and broken with his eyes bloodshot—clumsily tugged a card from his sleeve, exchanging it for one in his hand, and looked up into the barrel of Faraday’s gun.

“Now, why did you have to go and do that?” Faraday’s voice was deadly, echoing the silence that had descended over the bar at the first click of the hammer.

“You cheated!” the man stammered, eyes almost crossing as he tried to stare at the gun. His hands shook slightly on his cards, one card still jutting from his sleeve, the hand splayed to reveal a pair and three jacks. 

“You got proof?” Faraday’s grin was sharp, and beautiful, nearly a snarl with his teeth bared. It felt familiar to Vasquez, the ripples of some event long ago making itself known once again. He had slipped to his feet in the moment others were readying themselves to flee, feeling the thrill of chase begin low in his stomach.

Faraday didn’t see the other player, slowly making his way up on his other side, until the last moment. The man drew his fist back, Faraday twisting before it landed to lessen the impact—

Vasquez’s bottle shattered across the back of his head. He wavered for a moment, before crashing to the ground in a crumpled heap. 

“Thought you could use some help, guero,” Vasquez said, with a grin full of fire and barely concealed hunger. 

“I was handling it,” Faraday argued, but his hand remained steady on his gun levelled at the other man’s head. “But thanks.”

The next moment was chaos. Screams ran out as lightning struck once again, and the white light faded out into muted shadows. Vasquez saw another player raise his gun and struk, snapping his wrist. His scream echoed in Vasquez’s ears, and he felt his fangs press downwards, the world slowing around him as Faraday fired. It was a clever shot, aimed at the bottles scattered over the table—meant to distract rather than wound, and remove a weapon they could use against him—before returning to point at the man’s forehead with pinpoint accuracy. The metal sizzled on his skin. The final man tried to run, and Vasquez gave chase. 

When he was younger, he could chase his prey for days until they were broken and bleeding, begging for death. But the world had changed since then, both grew—with the discovery of lands he couldn’t even dream of—and shrunk until the walls pressed in on him when he ventured into towns that seemed to swell with buildings and people by the day. But there was no time to hunt this man for days now. He wanted to know Faraday better, after all. 

His own gun —his precious Maria, and for a moment he could see her face clearly in his thoughts, mouth ringed red with blood and ribbon woven into her hair—cracked, and the man fell with a scream, clutching at his ankle in imagined pain. The bullet was lodged in the floor, carefully next to, rather than through his ankle. 

The tang of blood was absent from the air, and Vasquez’s throat ached from the lack of it, stomach twisting with an almost overpowering hunger, and he swayed for a moment. 

“Hey.” 

Faraday’s hand was warm, gripping his elbow and carefully steering him to a nearby table—the former occupants pressing themselves against the wall, eyes wide. Vasquez sat at his prompting, dropping his bag from his shoulder to rest between his feet, the other man dragging a seat round in front of him with his foot. “You look like shit, hombre.”

“Could at least get me a drink, to replace the one I broke helping you, before insulting me, cabrón.”

“What will two drinks get me?” Faraday signalled to the bartender, leaning down to scoop up some of the fallen money. 

“The pleasure—” Vasquez made sure to linger on the word, saw Faraday’s eyes dart to his mouth where his fangs had thankfully retracted, before returning to his eyes, “—of my company.”

Faraday laughed, tipping his head back as tears gathered in the corners of his eyes. “You talk a big game. I like that.”

The bar settled slowly like an old house, whispers breaking out like wildfire in the background, but that didn’t matter to Vasquez. A woman dropped off their drinks, her face pale beneath the dark pink circles painted onto their cheeks, and Faraday downed half of his with a sigh. Vasquez watched his throat bob as he swallowed, head tipped back, and he curled his hands into fists as he  _ burned _ with the wanting of it. 

“You play?”

Vasquez blinked, startled away from his own thoughts of tugging Faraday’s shirt to one side to bite along the edge of his collarbone, or he could slip his hand easily inside his trousers—unhindered by suspenders as he was. Faraday’s grin could not be described as anything other than sinful, but he made a show of coyly batting his eyelashes as the edge of his finger trailed up and down the neck of the bottle in a show of waiting for an answer. 

“Si, but I have a feeling that playing with you is a dangerous game, guero.”

Vasquez knew he could quickly find himself addicted to Faraday’s laugh in all it’s shades and forms. “A vaquero with a sense of humor. My mother would warn me about men like you if she was inclined.”

Vasquez laughed, taking a sip of his drink—fangs tapping against the glass and he used the moment to press his tongue to them, filling his mouth with the taste of his own blood mixed with the sour beer. It wasn’t nearly enough, he would need to feed soon after pushing himself to near his limit time and time again, but it would hold him for now. 

“Why were you playing with them?” Vasquez tilted his head towards the still empty table. 

“Had to win my money for that drink in your hand somehow.”

Vasquez studied Faraday carefully. He covered it well with his devil-may-care attitude, his play at being a drunkard and a womaniser—shirt unbuttoned just enough to hint outlandishly, and eyes crinkled at the corners from laughter—but like could recognise like. Vasquez knew the pangs of hunger only too well, and the rage that could brew when you were viewed as lesser just because of some cruel twist of fate. He was still viewed as lesser now, he was on the run because of it. That marshall had it coming. 

“I have a proposition that could help us both.”

“Oh?” Faraday tried to look disinterested, but Vasquez could see the slight tightening of his fingers on the bottle and the spark that had entered his eye. They both knew how this evening would end now, and were eager to step ahead. 

“He,” Vasquez nodded towards the bar, the man’s back thankfully turned away from him, “will throw me out at some ungodly hour of the morning, just because I’m Mexican and that way he can sell the room to one of the drunks.”

“Are you asking me to bed, so he’ll see you have a white man with you?” Faraday laughed. “I don’t even know your name.”

“Vasquez.” Vasquez held out his hand, and Faraday shook it, the calluses on their hands almost a match. “Now you do.”

“How’d you know I don’t already have a room?” Faraday sat back in his chair, but his grin let Vasquez know that he wasn’t serious. This was all part of the game after all, just like how Faraday wasn’t nearly as drunk as he was pretending to be—the slur on his words was inconsistent, his hands too steady as he fidgeted with his cards, peering at them like a fortune teller. 

“Just a hunch.” Vasquez pulled at his neckerchief, Faraday’s gaze swooping down to the exposed skin, and Vasquez knew he had won. 

The noise swelled and Vasquez winced. Faraday’s face softened almost imperceptibly. 

“I’m amenable to finishing up here now.” Faraday glanced at his previous companions—now nursing their wounded pride with several empty glass littering the table next to them—and the edges of his mouth twisted. “Looks like we might be getting more company if we stick around.”

Vasquez stood, hooking his pack back onto his shoulder, and held out a hand to pull Faraday to his feet. They broke apart as they walked, but the moment the door shut behind them—the glares cut off like a physical weight lifted from their shoulders—Vasquez intertwined their fingers, drawing them to his mouth to kiss Faraday’s knuckles, pulling a low chuckle from the other man, his cheeks already turning pink. 

The room was small: barely able to fit the rickety bed pressed up against one wall, and a small dresser with a chipped jug sitting on top of it. Vasquez barely managed to see the room in any detail as the moment he pulled Faraday into the room after him, he was pressed up against the closed door, Faraday’s hands a burning brand on his waist, beard scratching against his cheeks as they kissed. 

Vasquez hummed, low in his throat, and coiled his fingers through Faraday’s hair, twisting the uneven strands round his fingers and gently tugging at them, until they broke apart with a gasp. Faraday’s eyes were blown wide, black almost blotting out the green, and his freckles stood out like stars on his pink skin.

“Tan hermoso,” Vasquez murmured, moving to kiss Faraday again and again until the man was loose-limbed in his arms, hands frantically pulling at his belt. 

“You going to fuck me then?” Faraday groaned, finally managing to slip his hands inside the gap he had made—his fingers a burning brand against Vasquez’s stomach, making his muscles twitch and jump, before they travelled downwards.

Vasquez couldn’t resist for a moment longer, and nipped at Faraday’s lower lip as he drew their mouths back together. His blood felt like liquid lightning, sparking across Vasquez’s tongue even in that small amount, full of the smokiness of whiskey and explosions. “I will do more than fuck you. I will make you scream my name until it is the only thing you know.”

Faraday raised his eyebrows, finally,  _ finally _ , wrapping his hand around Vasquez’s cock and pulling a groan from the depths of his soul. “Let’s see if you can back those big words up.”

He dropped to his knees—the reverberating thunk making Vasquez wince, his own knees aching in sympathy—and pulled his shirt off in the brief moment his hands weren’t working once again on Vasquez’s trousers. Vasquez quickly pulled off his own shirt, the fabric beginning to stick to his skin as the temperature rose. 

Faraday’s mouth was as warm and devilish as he thought it would be, his tongue tracing the vein and just the barest hint of his teeth. Vasquez curled his fingers into Faraday’s hair, fighting the urge to roll his hips further into that heat, swallowing down his groans. Faraday held no such compulsions, letting his groans vibrate through Vasquez, causing his toes to curl in his boots. 

“Come here,” Vasquez urged finally, drawing Faraday back up to his feet and stealing whatever smart remark he was about to say—his grin a herald to disaster—by kissing him to shut him up. It was, as Vasquez was quickly finding out, an incredibly effective strategy. 

Their trip to bed was short, but effective, discarding any remaining clothes as they went. Faraday’s skin broke out in goosebumps as Vasquez traced a hand down the curve of his spine, fingers damp with oil, but he pressed himself closer to Vasquez regardless. The straw in the mattress was musty beneath them, filling the air with the lingering scent of damp, but the sounds of Faraday’s groans was heavenly, second only to the sensation of Faraday twitching around his fingers. 

“Stop messing around and fuck me already,” Faraday hissed, his words broken and choked, hips twitching in minute aborted movements. 

“Patience is a virtue.”

“I’ll virtue you, you bastard, if you don’t—”

Faraday groaned against Vasquez’s mouth, going momentarily limp as Vasquez pressed inside. It was a dangerous situation, to keep the man away from his fangs, but Vasquez broke apart to kiss along the curve of his neck, letting Faraday’s groans fill the air. 

“You can bite if you want.”

Vasquez froze for a moment, hands tightening on Faraday’s hips as he thrust upwards into the man. “What?”

Faraday sat back, carefully tipping his head to one side and exposing the curve of his neck, trailing his fingers up to highlight it. “I said you can bite me if you want to, vampire.”

Vasquez tried to run, his mind fogged except for the current of fear that Faraday’s words had caused him, but the man above him was unmoveable, thighs like steel around his hips. 

“Hey. Hey!” Faraday snapped his fingers in front of Vasqeuz’s face. “I ain’t going to do anything. It’s a genuine offer.”

“We’re strangers, and you’ll let me drink your blood?”

Faraday shrugged, looking remarkably nonplussed for a man in his position. “You’re showing me an alright time. Seems only fair so you don’t keel over before we get to the good part.”

“Has anyone ever told you that you have a big mouth?” 

Faraday laughed, stretching in a way that made Vasquez curse and grab hold of his hips once more. “If I had a dime for every time, then I’d be a very rich man.”

He folded back over, pressing his face to the side of Vasquez’s neck and nipping. “Come on then, make me scream.”

Vasquez complied. The rich, smoky taste of blood that settled deep in his stomach, and the sensation of Faraday falling apart above him, then below him several times, almost making up for the empty bed Vasqeuz woke up to. There was a note pinned to his bag: ‘ _ See you around sometime. _ ’

⁂

Vasquez didn’t know what he was thinking. He had changed his mind several times since he took Sam Chisolm, duly sworn warrant officer, up on his insane offer, and yet he was still here. 

The appearance of four riders on the hill sent him scrambling halfway up a tree, Maria waiting in his hand, and a familiar scent on the breeze. 

Faraday’s face broke into a grin when he saw him, winking, and Vasquez couldn’t help but laugh in his surprise. The man was determined to surprise him every time, and Vasquez couldn’t deny that he was pleased to see him.


End file.
